Currently, governments around the world hold 463,000 BTC, with exchange balances hitting a nearly seven-year low!
Macro interpretation: Today, I saw a set of data mentioning that since Trump’s second term, the total market value of cryptocurrencies has evaporated by $537 billion, while during this period, the market has exhibited unprecedented structural changes—multiple games of institutional capital, sovereign funds, and geopolitical policies are reshaping the value logic of Bitcoin. This transformation concerns not only price volatility but also points to the strategic position reconstruction of crypto assets within sovereign economic systems.
From a macroeconomic perspective, the delayed expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts have sown the seeds for the crypto market. Economists point out that despite the rising risk of recession, the Fed is more likely to implement two rate cuts in the second half of 2025. This policy lag resonates with the current China-U.S. trade frictions—the cautious attitude of China's Ministry of Commerce towards Boeing deliveries and the repeated calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 'equal dialogue' reflect the far-reaching impact of tariff policies on global capital flows. The phenomenon of 'tariff-induced Bitcoin whale accumulation' revealed by Standard Chartered is precisely a micro-mapping of this macro uncertainty—when traditional assets encounter policy risks, Bitcoin's censorship-resistant characteristics become a new option for institutional hedging.
The market supply and demand structure is undergoing a fundamental shift. Data shows that approximately 80 listed companies hold 700,000 BTC, accounting for 3.4% of the circulating supply. If we include the holdings of US spot ETFs (5.5%), institutional capital has already controlled 9% of Bitcoin supply. Notably, Twenty One Capital recently announced hoarding 42,000 BTC, which echoes the conclusion of MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor: 'The only asset the US government cannot confiscate and liquidate is Bitcoin.' This awareness is triggering a chain reaction: Coinank data shows that the exchange BTC balance has dropped from 16% last year to 13%, while the ETF custodians' holdings continue to rise, indicating that a liquidity siphoning effect has already formed.
The intervention of sovereign nations injects new variables into the market. Governments worldwide currently hold 463,000 BTC, with the U.S. holding 198,000 BTC as strategic reserves, China holding 194,000 BTC through judicial recovery, and the UK's asset forfeiture mechanism accumulating 61,000 BTC. This national-level holding competition contrasts with El Salvador's monetary policy of 'daily investing in 1 BTC' and Bhutan's energy conversion strategy through hydropower mining. The ruling party in South Korea has even more groundbreaking policies: this year, it will open Bitcoin spot ETFs, abolish the '1 exchange - 1 bank' restriction, and promote STO legislation, which may reshape the East Asian crypto market landscape.
The resonance between technical factors and capital flows deserves caution. Material Indicators analyze the contest around the critical level of $93,500, which is essentially a pendulum test of market sentiment. Currently, Bitcoin's 21-week SMA defense coincides with the trading platform reserves dropping to a new low of 2.49 million since 2018. This 'exchange bleeding' and the divergence with the ETF's net inflow of $3 billion in a single week reveals a structural shift in capital flows—when institutional reports show that 48% of positions come from investment advisors, it indicates that Bitcoin is completing its transformation from a speculative tool to a strategic asset.
For the future market, several catalysts may ignite a new round of trends: first, the regulatory arbitrage that may arise from stablecoin legislation promoted by the Trump administration, and second, the potential demand for diversification of foreign exchange reserves by central banks worldwide. The target of $200,000 by 2025 predicted by Bernstein seems aggressive, but it implicitly contains a logic of supply tightening—if the current pace of institutional accumulation maintains, the institutional control volume will exceed 15% by 2025, combined with the strategic reserves that various governments may implement, the liquidity crisis in the market may drive prices to rise non-linearly.
However, risks always shadow us. The case of the German government selling 46,000 BTC last year, leading to a 15.7% drop, serves as a warning: the entry and exit of sovereign capital may exacerbate market volatility. The more profound impact is that when 9% of Bitcoin is controlled by institutional capital, its price discovery mechanism may deviate from the decentralized intention designed by Satoshi Nakamoto. The endgame of this capital feast may not simply be a new price high, but a global financial system's reassessment of the value of digital gold—in an era of fluctuating fiat currency credit and frequent geopolitical conflicts, Bitcoin is evolving into a new strategic reserve asset for sovereign economies.
BTC Data Analysis:
Coinank data shows that Bitcoin exchange balances have hit a nearly seven-year low, briefly rebounding to 2.492 million before maintaining a tightening trend, down 12% from the 2018 cycle bottom. Countering this is the continuous injection of institutional funds—Bitcoin funds saw a net inflow of $3.2 billion in one week, the largest single-week net inflow since Q1 2024, creating a unique market structure of 'stock tightening - incremental inflow'. On-chain anomaly indicators show that the exchange whale ratio (the proportion of large transfers) plummeted from 0.51 to 0.36 within ten days, revealing that the proportion of retail trading volume has surpassed the 64% mark, marking the first occurrence of a 'retail-driven' price breakout since the 2021 bull market.
This round of liquidity fluctuations reveals three turning points: first, the median holding period for long-term holders (LTH) has surpassed 155 days, forming a 'chain on lockup effect' for value storage; second, compliant platforms like Coinbase are consistently showing positive spot premiums, indicating that institutions are hedging against liquidity shortages on exchanges through OTC channels; finally, the ratio of open futures contracts to spot trading volume has risen to a historical high of 3.7, with leveraged funds dominating short-term pricing power. For the crypto ecosystem, while the shrinking exchange balances may reduce the risk of concentrated sell pressure, it could exacerbate liquidity crises during extreme market conditions. If combined with high leverage in the derivatives market, daily volatility of over 5% may become the norm. It is noteworthy that the resonance effect formed by the influx of retail investors and institutional allocation demand may push Bitcoin's market capitalization ratio to break through the 70% threshold, further squeezing the survival space of small and medium-cap tokens.
